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Castelo Branco fire, July 2019 União das Freguesias de Ninho do Açor e Sobral do Campo, São Vicente da Beira

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2019, 02:25 UTC

The fire started on 25 July 2019 in União das Freguesias de Ninho do Açor e Sobral do Campo, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 130 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 38 in Portugal in 2019, of 52.

The power measured by the satellite is low (1.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
130ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
25 Jul 2019 – 25 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
25 Jul
2019
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 2 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
6MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jul25 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

25

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

29°high
41km/h · peak gust
40%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. União das Freguesias de Ninho do Açor e Sobral do Campo 266 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town where it started
    87 ha reached on 25 Jul
    2.0 %
  2. São Vicente da Beira 961 inhabitants · 2.1 km from the town
    43 ha reached on 25 Jul
    0.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Coniferous forest58 %
  • Agricultural areas27 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland14 %
  • Broadleaved forest0.8 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 24 July 2019 and burned 216 ha (the satellite measured 130 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

ICNF (Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas). This is the agency’s operational record: its figures may be revised when the year’s statistics are closed.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
25 Jul 28.9 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Jul after 25.8 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Jul after 24.3 °C 53 % 33 km/h 0.5 mm High 24
28 Jul after 29.0 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Jul after 25.9 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Jul after 28.5 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Jul after 31.0 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Aug after 30.5 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Aug after 32.4 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Aug after 32.7 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Aug after 30.7 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 18 Jul 2019
After · 1 Aug 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 23 July 2019 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1036 µg/m³
232425262728
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 6Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Castelo Branco fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 25 July 2019 and 25 July 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 130 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: União das Freguesias de Ninho do Açor e Sobral do Campo (87 ha, 2.0 %); São Vicente da Beira (43 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.9 km of União das Freguesias de Ninho do Açor e Sobral do Campo. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.9 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Portugal (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 112

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.